The webfeet script which indexes the dates and events files looks for a particular format entry for each event - for example, for a public gig:
<H1>The Dance series, Location</H1> ..... <DT> <A Name="D.19931009">Saturday, 9 October 1993</A>: <DD> <A Name="B.Dance.English Ceilidh">Ran Tan</A>, caller <A Name="C.">Gordon Potts</A> <A Name="D.END"></A>:
All the fields to be indexed are held in Name anchors, other text is ignored. This makes the picking out of the relevant information simpler for the script as it can ignore extra information and comments. It also allows pages to be built with HTML editors which would not know about any specially invented tags holding the dates and places but can cope with 'simple' name tags. (Some care is still required with HTML editors however, Netscape Gold (3.0) does not preserve the text within the Name anchor (moving it outside) and some versions of Internet Assistant do not accept punctuation in the name.)
As the data is tagged with name anchors (and most usefully the anchor containing the date), a link is set up to point back to the entry so the source information can be referred by following the link.
The above markup in a band's or event organiser's page is turned into an entry in the events diary of the form:
<DT>Saturday, 9 October 1993: <DD> <A Href="....filename#D.19931009">Ran Tan, caller Gordon Potts. The Dance Series</A>
in the HTML, with people seeing
in the events diary.
There are some stripped down template files ( a list, table and table with background colours) which you can look at, save, edit and use as a basis for your own events lists.
There is also an Excel spreadsheet developed by Mr Red with the necessary macros to mark up events with these tags.
With your gig list uploaded to your webspace you can check it by calling:
This gives you a form with several fields, the most important being the URL. When you 'submit' the checking program reads the page, tries to work out the dates, bands, locations and lists them for you.
If the gig is a private gig, it is important to mention it in the text of the entry. For example:
<H1>The Dance series, Location</H1> ..... <DT> <A Name="D.19931009">Saturday, 9 October 1993</A>: <DD> <A Name="B.Dance.English Ceilidh">Ran Tan (Private Booking)</A> .....
This event will still appear in the events lists (and if you have included the map reference, on the map) but will have your 'Private Booking' annotation. People will see something like...
The above format falls apart if you have events on the same date in a number of different places in your page. A browser will only jump to the first (or next) Name tag.
In this case you have top make the date name tag unique by including a separate field....
<H1>The Dance series, Location</H1> ..... <DT> <A Name="D.RANTAN.19931009">Saturday, 9 October 1993</A>: <DD> <A Name="B.Dance.English Ceilidh">Ran Tan</A>, caller <A Name="C.">Gordon Potts</A> <A Name="D.END"></A>:
The diaries then collect a link to .....where-ever.html#D.RANTAN.19931003 and you can have different bands or events on the same date at different places on the page.
By default the Header (what you've given betweet the <H1>...</H1> tags) is used as additional information about the name of the event and it's location. If you have events in different places on the same page you will need to include details in with each entry. Do this in a separate field thus:
<DT>
<A Name="D.RANTAN.19931009">Saturday, 9 October 1993</A>:
<DD>
<A Name="B.Dance.English Ceilidh">Ran Tan</A>, caller
<A Name="C.">Gordon Potts</A>
<A Name="L.UK.XXDDDDDD">Dance Series, Somewhere else</A>
<A Name="D.END"></A>:
The L.UK.XXDDDDDD, for example L.UK.TQ294837 for events in Cecil Sharp House in Camden Town is there to allow you to include UK OS Map references so the events appear in the map of dances, this is described further in the section on the locations.
Footnote: the webfeet tags seem to be a very early attempt at MicroFormats, in particular hCalendar. It would make sense for Webfeet to pick up hCalendar events... it will be put on the list of things to do....